Lebanese army operations chief General Francois al-Hajj and his bodyguard were assassinated in a Beirut car bomb attack this morning in the Christian suburb of Baabde in East Beirut, just near the Presidential Palace. The killers used a parked car as a bomb and detonated it remotely as al-Hajj's vehicle passed by.
General al-Hajj was apparently targeted because he had been named by the anti-Syrian faction to succeed the pro-Syrian and pro-Hezbollah General Michel Suleiman as army chief of staff after Suleiman is elected president.That's pretty much a done deal after Annapolis, although it will take a constitutional amendment waiving the normal waiting period for military figures to serve in political office to do it.
This is a clear signal that Iran and Syria are not going to be content with just Suleiman in the presidency. They want control of the Lebanese military, and they want anti-Syrian PM Fuad Siniora out as well, and in fairly short order, with Hezbollah, Amal and the pro-Syrian factions assuming total control of Lebanon.
This will ensure that Lebanon comes under the control of Syria and Iran, and that the UN tribunal implicating members of Basher Assad's family and other top Syrian political figures in the 2005 assassination of ex-PM Rafiq Hariri goes nowhere.
Like Israel, Lebanon's democracy is the chief casualty of the new `understanding' engineered by the Saudis between Iran and the Bush Administration
3 comments:
this is truly a convoluted tragedy.\
leave it to ff to cut through the crap. sorry.
but to me this is like ff trying to explain the operation of the parlimentary system, or lack thereof, in paky.
maronite christians.
hezzy.
hamass.
even comparisons to the five families, that ff at times seems to be waaaay too familiar with, don't do this situation justice.
Hi Louie,
Glad you're OK.
Here's a brief and very simple rundown.
The French took over Lebanon after WWI and created a fairly stable government out of these main ethnic groups..Maronite Christians
(originally about 50+% of the country, and the most educated and affluent group), Sunni Muslims (a minority) Druse ( Arabs, but NOT Muslims) and Shiite Muslims ( the poorest and least educated group, but also the most numerous Muslim faction).
Lebanon functioned very well because their constitution took care to divide the major political offices among the groups,and because the country's properity in banking, shipping, trade and tourism gave it the nickname `Switzerland of teh Middle East'.
Two things changed it. (a) Arafat and the PLO were chased into the country by Jordan's King Hussein after `Black September' and set up a terrorist state within a state which destabilized the ethnic balance and (B) the Islamic Revolution, which led Iran to set up Shiite `militias' like Hezbollah and Amal.
The civil wars and the Israeli incursion to end the PLO raids on Israel sent a lot of the population fleeing the country, especially the Christians, who were the best prepared to leave. Lots of Shiites left too, for places like Canada, the USA ( `Dearbornistan') and Australia as `refugees'.
After the Israelis left, things muddled along for awhile and then the Syrians came in with the `permission' of Bush Sr.( reward for their non-services during the first Gulf War).
Where we are now is that Lebanon has an `ethnic' Constitution that no longer reflects the current reality, the US has put millions into aid for a democratic government that we essentially just sold out at Annapolis, the Syrians and Hezbollah continue to murder anybody inconvenient who gets in the way of their taking over again and the place is close to erupting into civil war again.
Clear?
Actually, I blame the Israelis for this. They should have killed Arafat and wiped out the PLO, and at the very least if they were going to leave,helped set up a Christian/Druse state that would have been Israel's ally in South Lebanon.
Instead, they left a strategic vacuum for Hezbollah.
And yeah, they were pressured to leave, but even cops and football players say no sometimes.
Ok - and WMD, not wavelength de-mutliplexers.
gissa edit button !!??
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